Well what do we have here? Thanks to Chef Maxwell and Co, some rather tasty new Vietnamese-inspired morsels debuted recently at Cochine (one of my favourite Istanbul haunts) so I was asked to come by and document the colourful array for marketing and social media purposes. Don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly rather hungry and looking forward to my next meal. Look at that mouthwatering Pak Choy below! Kind of makes me want to shout out loud. Yeah, baby.

I like the way mist isolates objects, and shrouds the city in an atmosphere of mystery — it becomes kind of minimalist, like a Danish mystery. I’m suddenly imagining a co-production: From the North Sea to the Black Sea … a body floats past a Turkish socialite’s tea party, still clutching a diplomatic pouch in her pulse-free fingers. Murder most foul. One victim, two passports. A diplomat or a spy? Chief Inspector Sigurd Ericcson and Kaptan Mehmet-Ali Osman are on the case. How will the differing investigative styles of this unlikely duo lead to an arrest? A cross cultural clash is inevitable as a pan-continental pursuit leads the two from the water’s edge to the razor’s edge. From steam-soaked hamams to sweltering saunas, from Taksim Square’s wig-wearing, gender-bending transvestites to a sado-masochistic European Parliamentarian, a bizarre array of locations, witnesses and suspects will lead our Nordic-Turkic crime-fighting heroes on a harrowing journey to uncover…

Last weekend in Urfa, at the Gümrük Han, I experienced a new type of hot drink that is far tastier — and probably far healthier — than many a high street chain store latté, known as menengiç kahvesi. Made from the dried and roasted wild fruit of Pistacia Terebinthus or the Turpentine Tree, I’d like to dub it the Turpentine Latté in English! Sounds appetizing, no? Okay, maybe not. In any case, the first sip was something quite unexpected and quite delicious, and I felt compelled to sample a second, which was not as enjoyable because it was overly sweet. However, since trying it at home, unsweetened, as I normally take my black coffee, I’ve discovered this is a welcome alternative to an evening coffee, when you have no desire to go to bed with caffeine-induced heart palpitations, or stay up all night pondering the meaning of the universe. Despite my…

Şanlıurfa, El Ruha, Edessa, Riha or perhaps just plain old Urfa (as it’s most commonly referred to) is a welcome surprise. The drive in from the airport, however, is not encouraging.. An imposing and ugly housing boom has left much of the outer fringe of modern Urfa looking like a victim of its own success. Then, however, you penetrate that encircling ugliness and find an ancient land associated with the prophet Abraham/Ibrahim and the local traditions of its Kurdish population as well as a very large Arabic minority and you begin to sense that you’re in for something different and possibly wonderful. Make no mistake: this is the East of Turkey, close to the Syrian border. Yet despite its proximity to that troubled land, it did not seem at my first, and very cursory glance, especially affected by the troubles on the other side of the border, nor too interested in…

If Dirty Harry Callahan were turned into flower, he’d be an artichoke. No doubt. Tough and weathered on the outside but on the whole a force for good. He’d be a thistle in the side — I know, the expression is ‘thorn’ but artichokes are a type of thistle not rose — of any bad-ass interlopers who thought they could muscle in on his vegetable patch. Feeling lucky, punk? Eat an artichoke.